Eagle Grove’s Downtown curb appeal “We are not the old Eagle Grove anymore”

The Eagle Grove Area Chamber of Commerce, in cooperation with the Eagle Grove Visioning Committee, hosted a Downtown Assessment this past May in order to evaluate the downtown business sector and prepare for possible future growth. Their observations, recommendations, and options were presented to local business owners and managers at a meeting held Tuesday, Sept. 25.

“It was a really successful meeting,” said Mickey Cooper of the Visioning Committee. “I was very pleased with how well it went...we had 25 people there.”

The report shared the information the Iowa Downtown Resource Center, an Iowa Economic Development Authority, collected after they spent three days in Eagle Grove touring the city and talking with business people about what works, what doesn’t, what their goals are for the future, and what types of changes they would like to see. A long with those findings, they offered suggestions about how to prioritize needs from wants, and even options to fund some of the improvements.

In their report they noted, “In order for downtown to reestablish itself as the social and commercial center of the community – the physical heart and soul of the city – downtown must become more valuable physically, economically, socially and politically.”

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